Camping Food Youngstown OH

Local resource for camping food in Youngstown. Includes detailed information on local businesses that provide access to dehydrated camping food, camping recipes, dried veggies, canned meat, and pre-packaged camping meals, as well as advice and content on the best food to eat when camping.

Camp Food: Eating Right in the Backcountry

There are two schools of thought regarding the menu for a hunting, fishing or camping trip in a remote location - roughing it or eating well. On my recent Alaskan caribou hunt, we ate well - including tundra filet mignon cooked on an innovative grill which folds up to the size of a ruler!

On any trip where weight is a factor, like a fly-in hunt in Alaska or a backcountry trout-fishing trip in the Rockies, it is tough to carry a week's worth of food. Unless you are willing to go hard-core and supplement a steady diet of instant oatmeal by living off the land, it is difficult to plan great meals without buying loads of the pre-packaged dehydrated foods found in outdoor stores, or enough MRE's to feed someone for a week. Either of these options are effective and lightweight, but run at least five dollars or more per meal which can add up for a week in a remote location.

The pre-packaged meals or military vittles are not the only way to eat well in the wild.

Planning Great hunting, fishing or camping trips start with great planning. If the excursion is for fly-in hunting, or involves living out of a backpack for a week, start out with a scale. Assemble all of the gear including the pack it is going in and weigh it. Whatever is left below the target weight is what you have left for food.

Taking the extreme view, a hunter packing for a sheep hunt needs to keep the total weight of the pack and all gear to around 45-50 pounds, which leaves 5-10 pounds for food. Sheep hunters bring around a pound of dry food per day, and often have to carry water as well. Given the extreme exertion of a sheep hunt, this doesn't leave much of a weight allowance to carry enough high calorie meals to sustain oneself.

Water weighs exactly 8.33 pounds per gallon, so it stands to reason that the more water there is in the food items you are packing, the greater the weight. The best way to get the weight down is remove the water, which is how the packaged backpack meals are prepared, all dehydrated and the only cooking instruction is to add hot water.

Assuming water will be available where you will be camped, it is simple to cook up a decent meal without a lot of trouble. The next step is coming up with a meal plan for the trip. Figure out a menu that you will be happy with but will also be reasonable for cooking a one-pot meal on a backpack stove. On many remote trips, you will work up quite an appetite, so plan on eating more than you typically do at home.

Backpack Food From the Grocery Pasta mixes, rice dinners all are available in the grocery store and are dried and packaged appropriately for a remote trip. These can be also be made into a complete meal by adding some meat to the mix. Be sure to read the label and stick to the foods that only need water to prepare or plan on bringing powdered milk.

You can't live on carbohydrates alone for a week, so it is important to bring along some meat and protein items. Canned goods weigh quite a bit, but there is...